Stay in the loop

It's no secret that fare evasion is a problem for Toronto's public transit system.

By some estimates, the TTC is losing as much as $50 million a year to people who sneak aboard buses, streetcars and into subway stations without paying their requisite $3.25 – and the problem is getting worse.

Broken machines do seem to result in a lot of unpaid fares, whether at subway stations where TTC attendants wave people through because Presto isn't working, or on streetcars when multiple pay stations are unable to accept cash / tokens / debit.

As for people pretending to be kids, the TTC board approved a policy in 2016 that would require all riders between 10 and 19 to carry TTC-issued photo ID with their Presto cards.

That policy was meant to go into effect by 2017 but, as The Star's Ben Spurr points out, it has yet to be implemented.